A Long Awaited-for Post!

After about 7 months of patiently awaiting the arrival of our wedding album, it has arrived!! And it is beautiful! We chose 6 of Four to capture the moments of our wedding day, and they did an absolutely beautiful job!

Here are some pictures of the beautiful album and what is inside:

This is the album container.

This is the album itself. It is a beautiful green with ivory ribbon on the side.

The first and last pages of the album.





Even though our reception pictures are awesome, we decided to cover only the wedding ceremony and events leading up to it in our book.

YAY 6 of Four!!

It is so fun to look through this album and remember that day. My friend Chelsea wrote a post about her day going through every detail, which I would love to do soon! But until then, here are some of the other pictures that are my favorite from the wedding events!

Our rehearsal dinner might have been my favorite thing all weekend! We had the people we love most around us and just were able to enjoy time with them! We are just so blessed!





This was when my dad saw me for the first time in my dress.








Pretty much anytime he looks at me I cry...yes, I am a daddy's girl! :)

My handsome groom and I.

The boys and the girls... the most amazing people I have ever met in my life.

To be continued...

One Good Chicken

Good Morning!

I wanted to share a recipe that I tried last night that was super easy and very delicious! It was one of those recipes that did not need expertise, but looked like you had been to cooking school and spent all day slaving over a hot stove.

Yes - those are my favorite too!

This recipe came from my Real Simple recipe book. If you have never entered into a Real Simple book, magazine, anything, go to the store NOW and grab a copy. They will help your life become...well, simpler.

I will start out with the ingredients for Simple Roast Chicken:

1 onion, sliced
1 31/2- to 4 lb. chicken, giblets removed
2 T. olive oil
salt and pepper
1 1/2 lbs. new potatoes, halved

Before I go on, I want to tell you the "substitutions" I made, or the details I changed a bit:
- I did not use a whole onion, just half of it.

- My chicken was 3.55 pounds, and I didn't remove any giblets because, well, I have no idea what that means.

- The potatoes I used were regular potatoes. I could not find "new potatoes" at my local grocery store, so I used what I had. I cut down the center of two potatoes and then chopped them up to pieces.

- The recipe calls for a "roasting pan" but I did not have that so I used a basic 9' by 13' baking pan lined with aluminum foil. My mom told me to cover it, but I forgot to...everything still turned out great, but you can try covering the pan with double aluminum foil (one pice won't be big enough).

Now I am going to give you the steps that I followed - if you have a roasting pan, just do all of this in that.

Heat your oven to 450 degrees. In your 9' by 13' pan lined with foil, group your chopped onion in the center. Pat the chicken down with a paper towel, place it on top of the onions and tuck the wings under it (I basically just set the chicken down...no need to be fancy!). Rub the chicken with 1 tablespoon of the oil and sprinkle it with 1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper (I rubbed the oo on with my hands then sprinkled the salt and pepper and rubbed that in too).

Put your potatoes in a bowl and mix the remaining tablespoon of oil and 1/2 and teaspoon of salt and pepper in with them. Pour them into the pan surrounding the chicken (HINT: the closer they are to touching the bottom of the pan, the better they will cook).

Roast, tossing the potatoes once for 50 - 60 minutes. Let the chicken rest for 15 minutes after taking out of the oven. ENJOY!

I served this with broccoli and rolls, and it was delectable. Not to mention it made our house smell really good!

I meant to take a picture of it right after it came out of the oven, but unfortunately I forgot. So, here is the finished product right after we enjoyed it!



Happy Tuesday!

Here We Go...

I have recently come to the conclusion that I would really love to be like those who blog ALL the time. But not just blogging for random reasons - blogging to have memories! I have many friends who are SO good at updating their blog(hello BFF)and they have inspired me to get better!

So, for starters:

Friday was a great day! I started the morning with my family at the pool. Unfortunately, it was pretty overcast, so Mom, Dad and I sat at one of the tables and just enjoyed catching up! Dad was facing the pool and in the midst of conversation he noticed a ripple coming from a filter.

So, he got up and went over to open it up, and inside was a baby rabbit! Still alive, the little guy was quite weak and cold, but was going to be fine. I ended up taking it home with me due to the hungry hawk we had heard and seen all morning.

That same afternoon, my niece, CB (11 months), came over to spend the afternoon with her auntie Am. Now, times like this, according to Blake, are supposed to serve as birth control. However, it did quite the opposite. We had a blast! We learned how to high five and pretended to go to sleep on our bed and wake up on our bed. We just laughed and laughed! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh...one day, through God's grace, I will have my very own and do this EVERY DAY!!!





Continuing on, I had put the rabbit in the back room so Miss CB wouldn't/couldn't get to it. Well, when Uncle Blake got home, we went back to see it, and much to our surprise it was NOT in the box! Fortunately we found it hiding under the dresser right away. Unfortunately, Blake spent the next 20 minutes chasing after the rabbit throughout our guest bedroom trying to recapture it while CB was just a laughing. She watched every move Blake and the rabbit made, making little noises that sounded like "Ehh" and "Uhh", but I interpreted them as "get it" and "I want it." Hilarious!!!When Blake finally got the rabbit, we let it go outside, and as CB watched it dash away she made sweet sounds of approval.

The rest of the evening was basically spent "playing house" and I watched my desire for a baby to join our family increase!!!

But for now, I am loving being a wife, friend, daughter, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law, sister, aunt...and I am joyfully, patiently (kinda sorta), and prayerfully awaiting for my time to be a mother.

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the sun.